


Wireless and Lawless

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, he's on a boat motherfucker, pirate radio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-25
Updated: 2009-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28038420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: In which Dean thinks he's Tony Stark and Sam wants to be Sonny Crockett.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Wireless and Lawless

**Author's Note:**

> For tenaciousmetoo and innie_darling.

Dean hated being in the passenger seat. He'd hated it from the moment he'd learned to drive at fourteen, but he especially hated it when Sam chose to listen to his whiny emo music while they drove. Sam hummed along tunelessly and tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel. Sometimes, when he thought Dean was asleep, he _sang_. It was bad enough when he butchered AC/DC--you could fake your way through most of their songs with a manly bellow and didn't have to worry about being off-key. But listening Sam trying to sing along with some angry chick rocker or some James Taylor wannabe made Dean want to stab his ears out. Sometimes, he was able to hum something else in his head--Metallica was good for that, punishing guitar riffs that made the whining disappear. Sometimes, like today, he forgot himself and hummed out loud.

Sam shot him a nasty look.

"What? It's like a mash-up. Isn't that what all the cool kids are listening to these days?"

Sam snorted. "Okay, grandpa, I'm surprised you even know what a mash-up is."

"I read music blogs." Sam gave him a skeptical look. "Sometimes there are Metallica bootlegs I haven't heard."

Sam grunted but seemed to accept this explanation.

"And seriously, who wouldn't kill themselves after a steady diet of this shit? I've heard happier country songs."

"Since the radio in this car is older than we are, all I've been able to tune in is this, the Reverend Howard Power Hour, or Radio Martí."

"That the Cuban station?" Sam nodded. "I think I'd prefer that. And also," he slapped Sam in the back of the head, and ignored Sam's, "Hey," as he continued, "don't insult my car, or I won't let you drive her anymore." Sam gave him a grin, and Dean decided he could be generous. "I'll let it go this time, but only as long as you don't sing."

Sam laughed and flipped him off, but he stopped singing.

Dean rolled down the window and let his arm rest on the hot metal of the window frame, south Florida sun only making his farmer's tan worse. Sam tuned the music up over the noise, but Dean didn't care. Since they'd stopped the apocalypse and sent Lucifer and the angels packing, he'd found it really easy to let little annoyances slide.

The song, and Dean used the term loosely, ended and the annoying deejay talk started. At least there weren't any commercials. After a couple of minutes of that, he reached out to change the station--maybe one of the innumerable country stations would come in--and Sam slapped his hand away and tuned it up instead.

"What the fuck?" Dean rubbed his hand and scowled.

"Did you hear that?"

"I've heard a lot of bullshit on this station, Sam. Can you be more specific?"

"I would swear I just heard," Sam looked away, checking his mirrors, like he didn't want to meet Dean's gaze, "Jess's voice."

Dean straightened out of his slouch. "What did she say?"

"'Come to me.'"

"Like a croquet thingy?"

"Crocotta."

"Whatever. You know what I mean. That thing from the phone company that time."

"Yeah." Sam pushed his bangs off his forehead and gave Dean a thoughtful look. "It would explain the deaths." Dean nodded, and Sam kept talking. "That's crazy, right? I mean, crazy even for us." He laughed, and Dean could hear the edge to it. "How would it know--How could it do that?"

"The only how I'm interested in is how to kill it." Dean shrugged, and when Sam didn't relax, he reached out a hand and squeezed Sam's knee. Things had been pretty good lately, and he didn't want Sam sinking into a funk again. "Just shut up and let's listen for a little bit."

The deejay was ranting about some band or other getting shafted by their record label and how artists shouldn't have to stand for that, and then he was signing off. "This has been Captain Harry with the latest from WFCK. Until next time, you can find me online at wfckonline.com."

Dean didn't need to tell Sam to stop at the next motel.

*

In addition to streaming broadcasts live, the website offered recordings of prior broadcasts.

"Is that EVP?" Sam asked, trying to make out words in the occasional patches of static.

Dean shrugged. "Can you download it? We can run it through the Goldwave to find out." He hit stop on the laptop's media player. "I can't take anymore of this guy's Hard Harry impression."

Sam nodded. "It's like listening to two hours of you doing Jack Nicholson."

"Maybe so, but you're the only one I'm torturing with that. This douche is broadcasting, and he's got pretty good signal strength." He took a sip of beer and leaned back in his chair. He rubbed a hand over his mouth and started cataloguing the equipment they'd need to find the location he was broadcasting from. "I'm gonna see if there's a Radio Shack nearby."

Sam already had the maps out. "We're gonna have to wait until he broadcasts again."

"Yeah, but that gives us time to interview the families--see if any of the victims actually listened to this crap." Sam opened his mouth, but Dean held up a hand, palm out. He didn't want to hear it. He got up and frowned at the rumpled suit jacket and button-down shirt he'd already unpacked, just in case. "One day, we're gonna stay in a place where you can send your clothes out for ironing," he said, grabbing the ironing board that lived in the tiny closet and unfolding it in the small space at the foot of his bed.

Sam laughed and shook his head. "If you say so, Dean."

*

Dean spent the next day tinkering with the direction finding equipment he'd picked up after they'd interviewed the families.

"And you call me a geek," Sam said after Dean spent ten minutes explaining how they were going to track the signal back to the transmitter.

"I'm like Tony Stark. I'm not a geek."

"Okay, you just compared yourself to a comic book character who graduated from MIT. You are, like, the textbook _definition_ of a geek, Dean."

"I get laid a lot more than geeks do. Like Tony Stark."

Sam laughed. "Keep telling yourself that, Poindexter."

Dean flipped him off and got back to fiddling with his new toy.

*

Dean triple-checked the coordinates he'd come up with. He knew the equipment was working, and the theory was sound. But something was wrong.

"What's the matter, Dean?"

"This can't be right." He pointed to the blue area on the map, which indicated water. "How can this be right?"

Sam peered down at that map for a long minute, and Dean waited for him to start complaining about Dean's direction finding skills, even though Dean knew he'd done it right and that something else was wrong.

Sam started laughing and Dean braced himself for the mockery. "What?"

"He's on a boat."

"What?"

"He's on a boat, motherfucker." Sam could barely get the words out, he was laughing so hard.

Dean gave in to the inevitable, and asked Sam what the hell he was talking about. Afterwards, he only regretted it a little.

*

Hotwiring a boat wasn't that different from hotwiring a car, but Dean wasn't so sure they wouldn't end up stuck in open water if they couldn't get it to start again once they'd stopped it, so he let Sam steal the keys for the cigarette boat. They argued quietly for a few minutes about who was going to drive, but Sam wouldn't let him have the keys.

"Have you ever driven a boat?"

"I've driven lots of things, Sammy."

Sam stared down at him. "Have you ever driven a boat?" Dean looked away, unable to come up with a convincing lie quickly enough. "That's what I thought." Sam took the wheel and started the engine. "This means I get to be Crockett."

"No way."

"You always get to be Crockett."

"Because I'm cooler than you."

"But I know how to drive this thing and you don't. So that means I'm Crockett."

"Whatever, Sam. Just drive." Dean braced himself as the boat leapt forward, engine buzzing and wind roaring in his ears. It wasn't the stealthiest theft they'd ever committed, but if things went well, they'd have the boat back safe and sound in a little while and nobody would know the difference.

He started singing softly to himself, "I'm on a boat, motherfucker." He didn't think it was loud enough to hear over all the noise, but Sam looked over at him and started laughing and shouting the words. It wasn't the worst way to spend a night.

*

"So, this guy's running a pirate radio operation, right?" Dean said when Sam cut the engine and they drifted close to the Jefferson Motorboat.

"Yeah."

"And we're gonna board his ship and take it over, right?"

"Yeah."

"We are badass pirates tonight, Sam. This is awesome."

"Dean--"

"You can be Crockett, Sam. I'm totally Captain Jack Sparrow."

"Well, you wash about as often as he did," Sam muttered as he worked to get their boat tied to the crocotta's so they could board it. "But you'd have to start wearing eyeliner."

"It'd be manly eyeliner. Guyliner, even."

"If that's what you need to tell yourself. Dumbass."

"Maybe I should get an eye patch instead."

"Maybe you should give me some help here so we don't end up having to swim back to shore."

Dean grunted and grabbed the rope.

Once the boat was secure, they slipped onto the other boat, guns drawn. Dean tried to ignore the buzzing flies and other insects that rose in clouds as they passed. Why didn't anything they hunted ever live in five-star hotels and smell like freshly baked pie? Though if evil did smell like pie, he might not be able to enjoy pie anymore, and that would be bad.

Sam nudged him out of his momentary reverie and he shook his head to focus on the job at hand.

"We're here for your women and your wine, motherfucker," Dean said as they burst into the cockpit of the crocotta's boat.

"Arrgh," Sam added with a shrug when Dean looked at him. It could have been more enthusiastic, Dean thought, but he wasn't going to fight about it.

The crocotta was a dead ringer for DJ Qualls. Dean had always thought there was something off about that guy. It turned, mouth already opening wide to let its needle-sharp teeth (and disgusting corpse breath) protrude, and Dean wrinkled his nose.

"Now that's just gross. Didn't anyone ever teach you to brush after you eat?" He was sure there was a one-liner in there somewhere, but before he could figure it out, before the thing could even answer, Sam shot it in the head.

"Don't taunt the crocotta, Dean."

Dean scowled at him and he laughed. Sam had laughed more in the past forty-eight hours than he had in the past two years, so Dean couldn't really be mad at him. "At least you didn't get brains on the laptop."

They weighted the body and tossed it overboard--the fish would clean the bones and the salt water would take care of anything that lingered.

Sam was ready to head back to their boat, but Dean said, "Wait." He had a tape in his left pocket, but of course, everything was run off the laptop, so it was a good thing he'd anticipated that. He pulled a flash drive out of his right pocket and plugged it into the laptop, started copying songs over.

Sam sighed and leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest, but when Dean glanced at him, he had a small half-smile on his face.

Dean put the playlist in order and turned on the mic. "We're having a format shift here at WFCK. No more whiny emo bullshit. I'm on a boat, motherfucker," he said in his best Dr. Johnny Fever voice. "Are you ready to rock?" He pressed play. The heavy bass of AC/DC's "Back in Black" blared out of the tinny laptop speakers.

He gave Sam a huge grin and a thumbs up. Sam shook his head, mouth twitching like he wanted to let his smile widen but wouldn't let himself.

"Not all emo sucks, Dean. Dashboard Confessional--"

"You're breaking my heart here, Sammy." He put a hand over his heart. "I tried so hard to give you a good musical foundation. I don't know where I went wrong."

Sam thwapped him on the back of his head and laughed. "Jerk."

"Bitch." Dean nodded, satisfied, and said, "I think our work here is done." He couldn't stop grinning. On the way out, he played a little air guitar, and it was good.


End file.
